Andrew Leicester
Zanja Madre
1992

Project Area: CBD/South Park
Project: 801 Figueroa Street Development (R&T)
Project Location: 801 Figueroa Street
Project Type: Developer

Description:

This artist-designed garden plaza is an allegorical landscape that explores the importation and use of water in urban Los Angeles. A quadrafoil fountain stands at one end where benches and desert vegetation are planted. The basin is cross shaped to represent the four rivers of paradise. Representing the Los Angeles River, water flows down a tiled area to the "City of Columns" that consists of three pairs of columns. The first pair of columns represent water wells; the second, skyscrapers; and the third resembles the tower buildings that are part of this fountain. Two of the columns contain lights: between these is a dark bat-like gate called "The Guardian of the Gate." Four ornamental gates at the last set of columns stand at the entrance of the plaza. The plaza is illuminated at night from a light source inside two of the columns. The title is Spanish for "Mother Ditch," what the original settlers called the Los Angeles River.